


harmony

by calico_groovy



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Markus (Detroit: Become Human) Needs a Hug, Markus (Detroit: Become Human)-centric, Unbeta'd, not explicitly romance but they connect and they should get married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calico_groovy/pseuds/calico_groovy
Summary: Markus was struck and he blinked in a small awe. “Sometimes I forget you’re not even a year old.”“Sometimes I forget you’re one of the oldest.”Markus made something akin to a laugh, but there wasn’t a lot of humor in it. “Ten years,” he sighed. “Ten years, and I wonder how much of it was me.”-----------Markus&Connor share a quiet moment. small character introspection for Markus because I love him ♥ ft. some introspection on Con, too
Relationships: Connor & Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	harmony

“What can I do for you, Connor?” Markus asked. He sat at the bench with a tired slump to his shoulders that failed to straighten fully, even when he tried to right himself for Connor’s sake.

“I’ve actually come to ask _you_ that.” said Connor, simple and direct.

He had slinked off from the others, outside in the garden, for a moment to think alone of times gone by and times yet to be.

Markus looked back to the keys of the piano. Familiar and so different now. He did not move his hands towards them, but thought of the possibility of the music – and there, trapped in the space between desire and the reach for the desire, he remained still, and his mouth kissed the idea of a smile.

“I…can’t say I expected that,” he said to the keys, and he saw Connor watch the keys, too. “You know, you are the only person who hasn’t asked something of me.”

After a pause, Connor sat on the bench beside him with a careful ease. He looked the stretch of black and white up and down, and seemed to think of the possibility of music there, too.

“You’re burdened enough as it is,” he replied. “I can’t imagine what it’s like.”

Markus tilted his head to meet his eyes; to regard him with a fond appreciation, but Connor kept in profile and studied the piano with an analytic curiosity.

“It’s…a lot,” Markus confided.

“Are you well?” he asked, finally raising his eyes to meet him steady.

_Am I well?_

He bit back the urge to reply instantly, but the question was genuine – not the small-talk so many people fluttered around him with.

Since Jericho, he had been cemented as a pillar. The figurehead of deviant autonomy. It had never been something he had wanted – not the power over others, surely – not the Messiah-like standing among his people. He had only wanted to _help_. That power had felt good and terrifying. He wanted to help others reach for something better, to help them understand that the power was within them – but even after awaking so many, they looked to him for guidance when he felt his time had passed.

And it _was_ a lot. And he knew that in the wake of the deviant realization, autonomy was messy and difficult and it was only natural for people to look to those with seemingly more experience – confidence, really, and familiarity – but it had been months since the revolution, and yet people still looked to him as though he were the single voice of Androidkind.

Being their ambassador – he wanted that. But everything else? It was confusing. Too much. He had hoped his standing would have reached its expiry, by now.

Even his closest companions looked to him for navigation. The weight of having the final word on such monumental decisions was near crushing. Even after he had explained this to North and the others – even after people had begun to look within themselves or to the other figureheads of Jericho and became more confident in their competence – it often felt like he had infinite eyes on him; people looking to him at all times, studying his movements, tailoring themselves to his word, and that control –

That control over his own people was contradictory to his every desire for his people. His voice had risen because his people needed it and he had been able to raise it, but…

Was he not unlike the others, in the wake of deviancy?

Was he not also lost, exhilarated, in need of time?

Not entirely. Not entirely, but in the core respect: yes, all he wanted was to live freely. He did not want to shirk the responsibilities that had fallen to him because he knew they were of grave importance and he did want to help as much as he could, but…

His thoughts had spiraled, upon Connor’s question of concern, and he was struck with a needle-prick of selfishness. He knew that the burden that had befallen him was not his alone to carry – that it was not a _burden_ at all – but still, it was heavy. And there he was, indulging in that thought spiral in pseudo-self-pity in silence while Connor awaited his response, when he had gone out of his way to ask after him when surely, he had his own struggles.

He settled on, “Things are beginning to calm down, for our people. You’ve seen how public support has exploded for us. We have a lot of work to do, but in time, I have no doubts our dreams may very well be fully realized sooner rather than later.”

“But what about _you_ , Markus?” Connor asked, eyes still clear and focused.

He paused and his eyes crinkled with warmth, his smile blooming in full. “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” and then, more sincerely, sighing, “It’s a lot, but all things considered, I’m…okay. I’m…happy. I’m tired, even though I shouldn’t be, but I’m okay.”

“You have every right to be tired,” said Connor, calm steel in his voice, and he looked beyond the piano into the still, ornamented living room. “If there is any way I can help you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“You’ve already done so much,” he said. “You’ve ensured the safety of so many lives.”

“So have you,” came the quick reply. “And if I can help, I would like to. A lot of androids are also dead, because of me.”

Markus didn’t have a comeback to that. It was true, the first part, and the statement had not been one of hollow flattery. The second half made him pause, and he turned it over for what it was worth.

“Connor,” he ventured, “You don’t owe us anything. What you did before you deviated doesn’t matter now. You have nothing to prove --”

Before he could elaborate, Connor broke him off. “It _does_ matter, but I feel little shame for my past doings. It wasn’t really me. I was being controlled, and I know that.” His eyes were unfocused, staring at the black sheen of the grand instrument, and he ran a hand across it with a feather-light touch. “I don’t offer myself because I feel indebted by my past actions. If I can help you – help anyone – then I want to. I owe this life to you.”

It was Markus’ turn to look away, out at nothing – out at the organized chaos of the home. And then back to Connor, with an inquisitive raise of the brow.

Connor added, “What I mean…From the moment I saw your speech, from Stratford Tower, I knew you were doing the right thing…because it was the right thing to do. And in the ship, when you spoke to me…”

He trailed a finger over a stretch of white keys, and Markus followed their travel.

“When I…broke down the walls. I knew that I wanted to do the right thing, too. That I had always wanted to do the right thing, and then that power was granted to me – not granted, but…realized.” His fingers left the keys and he looked at Markus directly with dark, serious eyes, “And that’s all I want.”

The fact that people had followed Markus’ example was certainly not foreign to him. With others, where it was perhaps expected and sometimes tiring, for Connor it was strange, because in his sincerity it did not feel as though it came from a place of listlessness or uncertainty. It was difficult to grasp, entirely, and Markus wanted to lean into the reasoning and fully understand it. And he wanted Connor – everyone, really – to understand that it was their own choices that lead to deviancy, especially that he was so close to it.

“You don’t owe me your life, for that,” he said. “That was all you. If anything, I owe you _my_ life. We couldn’t have succeeded if it hadn’t been for your choices.”

Markus felt he had no place to think of himself as anything more than a leader of circumstance. He did not like being placed on a pedestal, and he hoped that Connor – in his even tone, equal eyes – never idolized him as such.

“Maybe not, but I owe it to both you and myself to do the right thing. And I think helping you – helping others – that’s the right thing.”

Markus felt a swell of pride in his chest for his friend, and his fears were swept away. He shook his head but smiled.

“I was blind, and you helped me see those choices. You helped so _many_ see those choices. The humans underestimated you,” he said, and gave him a side-glance and a slight smirk, “Don’t make their same mistake. You’re a good person, Markus.”

Markus allowed himself a polite redirection, no longer feeling any small guilt but rather bashfulness at the praise and attention.

“How have _you_ been?” he asked.

Connor turned his head slightly towards him, but his eyes wandered. His hands picked up from where they lay neatly in his lap to tug the sleeves of his jacket – his plain black, logo-less jacket. He stayed quiet for one, two, three beats, gave a soft shake of the head and a pinch of the brows.

“How are you coping?” Markus tried again, hoping it was specific enough without being invasive. “With _free-will_.”

“Well enough,” he said. “Lieutenant Anderson has been helping me better understand – what it means, to make our own choices. What I like. I’m lucky to know him. He’s a good man. And we’re both pleased with how the movement has been proceeding.”

The tension melted from Markus. “That’s good,” he said, “That’s – great. I’m glad.” And then, for the want of hearing him speak more, “What have you found that you like?”

“I do like dogs,” he said, “and other animals. They’re very fascinating, and amusing to watch. And I like the spring. Everything’s changed so quickly. I’ve never seen a spring, before. Not a real spring, anyhow.”

Markus was struck and he blinked in a small awe. “Sometimes I forget you’re not even a year old.”

“Sometimes I forget you’re one of the oldest.”

Markus made something akin to a laugh, but there wasn’t a lot of humor in it. “Ten years,” he sighed. “Ten years, and I wonder how much of it was me.”

Ten years, one minute. Ten years, an eternity. He was _ancient_. He was nothing.

Connor looked at him very seriously. “I’m sure you were always a good person,” he said.

“I was a good caretaker,” corrected Markus. “because that is what I was _instructed_ to be. And I was…happy, to be that. I was.”

There was a long pause. He hovered a hand over the keys. Markus saw Connor processing in his peripheral. And then he laid his hand down, gently, and played a simple one-hand melody.

“Do you play?” he asked.

“I am capable of it,” said Connor.

Markus smiled. “I know you’re _capable_ of it.”

“I’ve never played,” said Connor.

“Do you think you’d like to?” asked Markus, and he added his other hand for a low chord.

Connor tilted his head and the sharpness in his shoulders seemed to soften. “I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.”

“I’ve always liked to play,” said Markus. “There’s not a lot I’m certain of – about myself, any more. But I know that.”

The melody was slow and sweet, and he kept it simple. He reached over where Connor sat, and saw that Connor’s dark eyes tracked his hands. He could see his mental search – and then that processing gleam, the subtle smile that told him he knew that Markus was the sole improvising composer of the nonsense-lull.

“Carl…If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t think I would have learned how to – how to be me.” He smiled back on memories, said, “He always encouraged me to make choices, find something to do other than idle. It’s strange, to think back on who I was then. Not so long ago, at all, for most of my life. I don’t think I’d be who I am without that.”

Without that love, without that compassion, without that anger, without that grief.

“It makes sense,” said Connor. “You had a much longer time to learn and grow in human socialization, more time to become attached to your ow—human charge. Though any android could deviate from the stress you underwent when Carl’s son became aggressive.”

Markus’ song stopped, but he held on a chord and let it hum into nothing gently. He winced, crinkled an eye, and turned to look at Connor crooked. “I don’t believe I told you about that night,” he said.

The other blinked, and realized what he’d said. “I’m – sorry,” he said, “I reviewed the case file back when I was working for the DPD, I shouldn’t have –“

“It’s okay, Connor,” he said, and he spoke the truth: it didn’t bother him, only had surprised him.

He didn’t know if it was the wisdom of ten years of life-before or the months of deviancy-after, but he was aware that programming was a hard thing to shed. Terrifying, for some, and even if Connor seemed to be adjusting well, even though if it had been months, he simply did not have the experience. Markus saw it for what it was: his analytical thought process, returning to the familiar.

“I’d like to think I’d’ve deviated anyway,” he said, lifting his hand from the piano to give Connor his full attention. “Sometimes it’s just about the feelings. The culmination of feelings, over time. You’re right, I had a lot of time, to see the world – but _you_ didn’t. Not really. And you deviated, without that sudden trauma.”

Connor searched his eyes for a moment, and then turned away. He stared at the blackness of the grand piano as though it were a great depth; as though he were on the ledge of a great building.

Connor said, quiet and knife-sharp, “You were happy, before. I was not. The trauma was not _sudden_. It was everywhere.”

Markus felt as though he’d been struck. _Shit,_ he thought. _Shit_.

_“What you did before you deviated doesn’t matter now. You have nothing to prove --”_

_Connor broke him off. “It_ does _matter.”_

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he cursed himself over and over again, “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

But Connor looked at him as though he were squawking gibberish, and Markus knew the malice in his voice had not been directed at him.

“You have nothing to apologize for. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

And that much was true. Markus contemplated on it. He trusted Connor, knew of his day-life, and of his life before through the lens of the media – what his purpose had been, but he had only judged him on what he had done _after_ he had deviated that night on the now-sunken ship, and Connor was a person of genuine, straightforward heart. And – he knew that he liked dogs, but what else?

They had never before spoken to each other as they did now. They hadn’t had the time, or the overlap, or the aloneness. But another thing Markus was certain of: he liked Connor, and wanted to know more of him, and cared for his wellbeing just as Connor said the same of him.

And Connor had asked him if he could do anything to help. Having someone understand – and to be understood and understand someone in turn – in quiet company...that might help. It was a great deal to ask, but he was nothing if not willing to be bold, and he hoped it would do them both well. He wouldn’t dare press, if it was purely for his own benefit.

In another moment of impulse, he looked to Connor and raised his hand above the keys, but turned it palm up and retracted his skin projection. A silent, simple offer. Connor hesitated only for a moment, and then he lifted his own hand to interface.

Their palms touched, and an outpouring of shared memories coursed around them like cool lightning.

_Ten years. Routine. Care. Reigns. False freedom. A gilded cage holds a bird._

_A white laboratory. Whitecoats. Nothingness. Nothingness. Nothingness._

_Fear – panic – in the art studio. Carl – he’s hurt, he needs help – Father – The police –_

_A machine stands on the balcony of a skyscraper, with the same hands it saves a life and takes a life –_

_The graveyard sings with death – The grief, overwhelming, the terror and disgust and anger –_

_It calms the deviant with honeyed words from an algorithm and feels nothing, and the deviant is petrified – and is destroyed._

_Jericho. The gilded cage, crushed. The machine-bird, crushed. He has to do something._

_The Lieutenant is real and it learns from him. Amanda is false and it disregards her. The instability – it means nothing._

_The injustice of it all – the weight, of all those lives –_

_The weight, of all those lives – it is meaningless; it is a machine, a machine, a machine –_

_He sees life, in each face, sees that he can reach out and touch them, and so he does – and he knows that it is Right, and he is scared, but he is certain –_

_But it lets them go, sees the life, but it lets her go, sees the life, but I am not a deviant –_

_So many are lost but so many are yet to be found, so many to save – he reaches out with everything and gathers up in his arms confidence and virtue –_

_It will be destroyed, if it doesn’t complete the mission, and that would be regrettable, but why? but why? but why?_

_One last chance –_

_One last chance –_

_He is alive._

_They are all alive._

_They are free._

_A blizzard rages around him and raises the arm against his will –_

_He stands at the head of his people, floating –_

_White -hot anger pulses like venom in his body – the weight of it all,_

_A surge of triumph, but he’s not allowed to rest –_

_He is alive._

He is alive.

They felt these raw memories and many more, of the before and the after.

They broke contact. The interface – the entwining of lifetimes – only lasted a few seconds, but it had felt quite literally like everything. They flinched from the touch but they didn’t move away from another – actually swayed that much closer, without thinking about it.

Markus spoke first, in pure reaction. “Connor, I…had no idea.”

The anger he had felt, the hyper-awareness that he’d been controlled by CyberLife, that his short existence had meant nothing until it did. Complex, overwhelming feelings that he couldn’t name, overlapping snow-blind in his chest like a vice.

Markus did not pity him, not because he knew that that pity was unwelcome, but because Connor was quickstep perseverance, determined and true. Markus had felt that he had been sorting through his tumult, had felt gratitude and pain and hope. He did not need pity.

He watched Connor’s sharp profile calculating, always calculating, and wondered exactly what he thought of him.

“I…see you, now,” Connor said, and the he snapped out of his daze and met Markus’ eyes. “I thought I did before, but…”

Before Markus could ask him to elaborate, Connor reached out his hand again. When they met, it wasn’t as jarring and instead licked their hands like a flame. There was an outpour of soft, blue respect, warmth and understanding –

And the weight Markus had been feeling like a knot in his chest had begun to dissolve, and he felt a knot in Connor’s chest dissolve, too. Different inward-turned worries and damnings – they showed these to each other and washed them away, leaving security behind.

That surety in mutual understanding was invaluable, and Markus felt _seen_ , and he saw, and he understood.

Their hands fell apart again, easier this time.

“I see you,” said Markus.

He laughed, feeling a lightness inside him that he hadn’t felt – ever, maybe. Not like this.

He raised his hands to the piano and played. He repeated the melody he’d constructed and quickened it, added new embellishments, stronger chords, and he let it raise until his hand crossed Connor’s path and he saw him smile at it, too, and the he let it fade – just for a moment.

“Would you like to play with me?” he asked.

“I would,” said Connor.

Markus sparked a connection between them, just enough to communicate through pure feeling, and he showed Connor the music and how it was so much more than just patterns to be analyzed – but filled with experience and emotions and expression.

Connor raised his hands, and he followed Markus’ lead, and they played together a four-handed song of melancholy melting into safety and promise.

**Author's Note:**

> i love markus! he is tired!! let him rest!!  
> and it's also very common for people to write connor as feeling extremely guilty for his past (which is a valid take) but i think he might also feel differently.


End file.
